Kingfish Fun

Recent inshore and offshore fishing reports from the Northwest region.

Kingfish Fun

Florida Sportsman member: Bonecracker

My daughter came home last week after doing a 3 month internship in New York City and she needed some boat and beach time badly before heading back to UGA. Trout and redfishing has it moments in August (mostly bad) so I decided to load up on some tasty bait fish and head offshore for some action.

Alicia and Tyler were on fire and pulled in some nice fish while I lost a few good ones and followed through with a skunk nasty. We caught 4 grouper on the last spot before running out of live bait and left a bunch of fish in the rocks.

We moved around a few places in that depth, catching some more keepers and picking through a lot of shorts. We needed to head in soon so I started working my way back in and found some new bottom showing fish. We ended up finishing our limit and getting the red grouper here and ran in with the fish still biting.

about 10am and a little more water, we headed to the spot, eased into the area and within minutes I had locked up with a 23 inch redfish on a topwater plug. After landing that redfish, we then hooked up with another, this time a 29 incher that gave me one of my best ever redfish fights. For the next 2 hours we were in solid redfish.

My next cast I get a huge blowup, fish gets hooked and taking drag. It’s got to be a red, couple of good runs and I get the fish close enough to see and it’s another large trout. Into the boat and another quick measure at just over 27 inches and 5.12 pounds.

Like I was saying, the bite was off the chain. The fish just kept hitting and hitting. Trout, Jacks, Spanish and Bluefish, a completely mixed bag, were all crushing our plugs. By about 10 o’clock, it slowed down a bit and we turned our last ditch effort towards getting a Redfish with the peak tidal movement coming in.

At the first hole it was game on from the first drop and we proceeded to load the boat with the giant humpback seabass I’ve been hearing about. Seabass are our parents’ favorite fish and Alicia and I enjoy them very much for table fare as well. We wanted to make sure we caught enough to feed us for a few weeks, but to also save some for my folks back in Orlando.

On the way I see a big wake in about 6 inches of water to which I place a nice shrimp at it nose. Fish on, although it didn’t make the normal runs like a red. As it gets closer we realize its big 5 pound sheepshead. I don’t catch too many sheepshead tailing so this was a nice bonus. After poling a few hundred more yards I see another large wake in very shallow water. Again placed a shrimp at its nose, boom! Another sheepshead and this one was even bigger than the first.

We set up on spot two and proceeded to put a few big Red snapper boat side to be vented and released, cussing their lack of presence the previous week, I think everyone took turns reeling up a decent ARS before the Mango’s and the Red Grouper started chewing and I can’t tell you how happy that made us! And yes some other anglers drifted so close to our marker buoy I thought they were going to use it to anchor on.

Our plan was to fish the Wakulla beach area, but concernes of crossing the mouth if the river forced us east. The mouth of the river can get too choppy for a 14-foot John in a hurry. We ran into a carpet of floating grass, forcing us off plane every 100 yards or so. We started fishing creekmouths as the tide started coming in. We didn’t have much luck so we headed up the creeks. We went way up, further than I thought they would be. We went to a spot I affectionately call “liars bend”. Tw and I have fished this spot about 10 times in the past 2 years and have never caught a fish there. But when he goes solo, it seems to produce. Liars bend gave us 4 slot fish 20-26 inches and a rat. We moved to a creek over and found a nice bend and picked up another 4 slot fish bewteen 23-26 inches and a nice 31-inch fish for the captain.

A quick stop at the Moorings for fuel, ice and bait and we were off. The plan was to go deep but with fresh repairs we were kind of hesitant. The boat ran great at 2100 rpm’s and cruising at 23 knots and once we hit 80 feet with no problems the owner made the call to keep going. Not much further and a over heating alarm came on for the #2 engine, the one that was worked on. We couldn’t see any leaking fluid so we limped on with one engine. We reached our destination and the first baits were dropped at 1pm. Right off the bat every rod was bent over and 5 snapper came over the side and hit the deck. The show on the bottom machine was unreal but as soon as we got there lightening appeared from nowhere. Everybody jumped in the cabin and the radar was pulled up. There was a storm a few miles south of us and it was growing rather fast. As much as we hated to leave that mark we moved on. We stopped 2 more times (a total of 3 stops) and we were headed north. By this time the engine had cooled enough to get the cap off of the radiator and we couldn’t see any coolant. We added about 3 gallons (it holds 4) of water, started the emgine, looked for leaks which we didn’t see and headed on in. The cap was not real tight and we’re not sure where the fluid went or even if it was topped off after being worked on. I’m thinking with us sitting around waiting on them to fix it coolant was not put back in but not really sure. The engine ran great with no alarms all the way back in. Other than a couple of setbacks it was a great trip. 10 red snapper, 3 Lane snapper, 1 red grouper and 1 king was the catch for the day. The seas were great at 1-2 foot the entire day.

After loading up with bait, I ran out to a spot in 18′ with very rocky bottom and within seconds of dropping our anchor we’re spotting eagle rays and cobia are tackling our initial drops. We’re a bit slow to reach our initial bite and lose it, but didn’t have time to cry about it because almost instantly another rod off the back gets hit. End result a 31 foot short but solid fighter that we tag and release.

Things really slowed down after the initial bite, with just enough time between a few monster bites that we were too slow to the reels. Growing worried we might not get any more bites, I decided to chum some dead baits and it sure seemed to work as within minutes we had on the bite we wanted! A BIG keeper cobe that gave Ontiltttttt exactly the fight he wanted[...]

Ecofina Cobia & Grouper

Florida Sportsman member: big bend gyrene

Met up outside Tallahassee at 5:00am, and with crossed fingers we would be greeted by calm waters we made our way to the coast. First good sign of the day, it was calm… quite a change compared to the prior week’s weather.

Bman couldn’t have fought the fish more perfectly. He had the darn beast on for about 40 minutes or so, with us gasping at each and every run and turn of the reel, wondering which would give first, the fish, his 20 pound line being pulled down towards rocks, or his small freshwater size chug bug. Again, Bman showed unbelievable finesse in keeping the 30 to 40 pound cobia on the line and slowly but surely he turned the tide against the beast, or at least it appeared so as the cobia came closer and closer to the boat.

First good sign of the day, it was calm… quite a change compared to the prior week’s weather.
Second good sign of the day, while I quickly load the live well with pins Bman has a hot hand during slack tide catching mackerel, bluefish, and trout.

The good start had me biting at the bit to get on cobia, but due to the open grouper season and a slack tide pre-dawn launch I asked Bman to humor a different plan of attack than I’ve taken in the past.

Versus instantly running out to deeper hotspots, Bman and I stopped in a 15 foot rocky area and started trolling stretches towards a distant 19 foot spot. My goal involved more than simply catching grouper, as I wanted to record bottom readings from my Lowrance for future reference. This all sounded good and well during our pre-fishing war room strategy talk, but unfortunately we had not one single grouper bite during the scouting mission.

The only positive of the mission came when we reached our rocky end point in 19 feet of water. Bman noticed a wake being pushed about 30 feet in front of our bow and thinking it was a big mackerel, he threw a small chug bug to it on a rig that just as easily could have been used for catching small bass. Massive, massive, MASSIVE topwater gulping bite, and Bman yells, “IT’S A COBIA!” Absolutely and the very first midshore cast of the year off Marine’s Dream and it’s a BIG cobia.

Left the dock yesterday afternoon at 3:30 with every one running in from the storms look at me and my guest like we had lost are minds. With nasty looking storms all around lightning popping to the north I was wondering on are last min decisions to get out and try to catch a few fish. With my trusty I phone in hand I could see a small break in the storms so we put the hammer down and headed out the river.

Hit a couple spots looking for some sheepshead for dinner with no volunteers for the tacos. So I headed off to flat that had been holding some decent schools of reds earlier in the week. The wind had picked up pretty good so I figured it would be pretty challenging to say the least. No sooner than the trolling motor got wet we where hooked up on a pig[...]

Finally after months of dealing with house buying, house selling, moving, & the holidays, I was able to get back on the water. The weather Sunday was absolutely perfect. Sunshine, blue skies, 1 foot in the morning, slick in the afternoon…It doesn’t get any better than that! We ran out and secured a dinner of beeliners and seabass then I let the kids spend the afternoon catching AJs one after the other. Two worn out kids, lots of smiles, and a great memory for her friend who caught the biggest fish of his life. As much as I love fishing with my buddies, this is the kind of day I really live for.

Has been a while since my last post but man the fishing has been great this year. Yesterday me and a client headed out about lunch time for some skinny water inshore action. Sheepshead where every where making it hard to spot reds with the sheepies darting every where. I was on the poling deck maybe 10 minutes when we spotted are first target. One cast landed this nice pompano.

Decided to fish around Lanark as I had got some good reports from fishing buddies of trout and redfish being caught. Had a few numbers in the GPS that had been productive in the past so we headed over to them and did little for over an hour due to low tide except catch pinfish for bait. Around 12:30 Mackenzie’s drag starts screamin’ and she had something big on her pinfish. Fifteen minutes later with a little help she lands this big Redfish between 20-25lbs[...]

We made the call to take our last licks at some gags before the closure on November first. The crew for the day was myself, Dad, Don (Greenbone), and Mike. We pushed away from Shell Island Fish Camp in St. Marks at 7:30 a.m. to a brisk, sunny morning. NOAA was calling for 5-10 knot winds and 1-2 foot seas but when we made it to the flats, well, let’s just say they were wrong. It was white capping as far as you could see with a stiff 15-20 knot northeast wind. We caught a well full of pins and pigs and decided to stick to the flats for a few hours and see if she would lay down enough to get to some close federal holes [...]

Was down at Econfina for the weekend. Fishing was very slow due to lack of moving water and very stained water clarity. We did manage 14 trout, 5 rock bass, and one flounder for the cooler. All fish were caught on gulp shrimp in various colors. The surprise came friday mourning when we fishing around a rock pile in two foot of water. My partner had a gulp on a cork freelined out the back of the boat. Then bam rod gets doubled over and the fight is on!

We went to St. Mark’s at sunrise to take advantage of cooler weather in the area. I caught a 20 inch redfish right away using live shrimp. There were plenty of Spanish mackerel that kept crashing into a bait fish school, so I knew I would get some of them. My first was a 20 inches and then I caught an 18 inch snapper and kept both. I was losing a lot of bait to a school of small sea bass, but then a mangrove snapper of keeper size showed up and I was able to add him to my haul [...]

Went out with Clay Oaks, it was a bit rough but we caught fish: 6 AJs, 5 gag grouper, 3 red grouper, and various assorted smaller snappers. Brought up a whole lot of red snapper, that was frustrating. We were in 92 to 96 feet of water.

With snapper season coming to an end in the near future Line Dancer wanted to make two final trips offshore. The first was going to be a test run with the World Cat with just LD, myself, and his father-in-law on 7/12 with us swapping out the father-in-law for his wife and sister-in-law on Friday (the 13th – more to come on that) [...]

Hit the fish again today with my little brother. Never had a fast bite today like we did yesterday morning, but we caught fish pretty steady all day. Again back at the ramp by 1:30. Limit of red snapper and gags, 3 red grouper, 4 mangrove snapper, and some assorted sea bass and beeliners [...]

Celestial Crab Anniversary/birthday trip was successful! Happy Eight years to my rib Celeste!! We had a great diner at my friend Danny’s restaurant Tamara’s in Apalachicola. This our unexpected second June trip this snapper season, things somehow worked out that The Celestial one and my beautiful daughter could join us, the stars aligned, the moon was waxing and the crew restless. Seas were not as predicted, but then when are they, my plans were to fish with some familiar faces, but a son of one and daughter of mine threw us a curve ball, we did best to make contact and keep things in play, but with extra fielders it ended up being a 2 boat trip on Saturday [...]

My wife and I went out early to the jetty in front of the St. Mark’s lighthouse and had a great day. Using live shrimp I caught a 17.5 inch redfish, and followed it with another at 17.75 inch and released both of course. My wife caught a huge Spanish mackerel that gave her quite a fight. I managed to pull in a flounder and then she topped off the day with a surprise pompano [...]

I planned on fishing with my wife’s uncle on Friday, but that got called off due to the weather. Omegafoo was planning to fish on my boat with us on Saturday. with the forecast still more than my back could bear we changed gears and decide to try some of the close in stuff. We got ready and headed out early Saturday morning and the seas sure made me glad we were not going to try and run 40 plus miles [...]

Seeing that it was the opening weekend of red snapper season and we had a narrow weather window on Sunday, myself and the crew decided to give it a go. My best friend who I used to fish with all the time until he moved to Delaware to take a job was in town for the week and chomping at the bit. We left Tallahassee at 6 am and were in St. Marks putting the boat on the trailer at the marina by 715. Once on the trailer we headed west to Lanark [...]

Here are a few pics from some recent trips to Taylor County. Most of these fish were caught out of Fenholloway but long runs between points, bars & creeks. Mostly my tournament partner but a couple of me as well [...]

I’ve been fishing quite a bit since it warmed up, but wasn’t too much thinking about cobia until 2 weeks ago. We were working the bars at the mouth of St. Marks and having luck here and there on redfish, trout and flounder that were unlucky enough to smell the fish blood stains on my skiff (it’s like collateral chumming), but never really keyed in on the fish in my opinion. We got some trout and had some fun over the numerous trips in March and April, and Bruddy fell in the water. The trout are around the bars and nearshore, pinfish are on the flats in 4 to 8 feet. In about 20 feet, things were pretty quiet most trips except for the hoards of millions of bait that seemed ever-present and hungry [...]

My dad and uncle and some friends camped down at the Econfina State Park to make some memories. Uncle Butch and I met down there a little after lunch and set up camp. After setting up tent and screen room we decided to go out…wind was calm and we were met by bites on every cast soon to find out the bottom is littered with baby rock bass. Ended up catching one keeper trout. My buddy and his kids were out there and had been since 10 am they had four when we went to fish shoreline in hopes of reds with no luck. We decided to head in at 6 pm to meet with dad. Only to learn dismayed that my buddy stayed where we drifting and put 9 more keeper trout in the boat.

Put in around 9:00 AM – tide dead low — ran North and fished in 3 to 4 foot of water that had a lot of bait pods. First fish was a good size mack, but as i didn’t have my net ready he ended turning at the side of the boat and cut me off and swam away with a brand new $12.00 lure .. Fishing was red hot, lots of ladyfish, lower slot trout, couple of bluefish, kept one 22 inch trout. Moved inside to fish the river mouths as the tide was on the increase. Caught eight reds, one 24 and one 22 inch which i kept.

I love the spring every time you go on the water you never know what your going to find. We have been fishing grass flats from 2′ to 5′. Speckled trout have been busting top water plugs and jerk shads. There are a few spanish showing up and a lot of bait on the flats. Live shrimp on the reds and flounder has been the ticket the weather and the fishing has been outstanding [...]

First off, hi everybody, I’m new to the forum. Enough about me me lets talk fishing. The weather the last couple of weeks has made it a little challenging. I’ve been catching some nice speckled trout in the creek mouths in the crooked and new river. Top-water plugs are my favorite mirror lure or what ever you got as long as it looks like a wounded mullet fishing em’ slow. On the flats we have been fishing for big red drum there’s some big schools out there sight fish in 1 to 2′ fish points, potholes, look for mullet
and rock grass fish DOA shrimp or gulp. Trout and flounder are also being caught on the flats with some blue fish and spanish starting to show up [...]

Hey yall’, I don’t know if you’ve been thinking fishing lately like I have, but this warm weather is really sticking around. Most trips, the warm outer clothes had to stay on most of the day, but we were blessed with a few calm days where conditions allowed for me to turn the skiff loose in the gulf [...]

Pony Keg had to stay behind to work on a school project and was not happy about it. That left me and Big D to thin out the fish population. This is my favorite time of the year to fish for many reasons. No bugs, no sweating, and no crowded ramps to name a few. We did not set any records, but did catch a few good fish and had a great time floating around on the flats. I will be back before the first hard freeze hits [...]